The driver of a truck spreading fertilizer was killed as he tried to avoid rear-ending a passenger car on Highway 140 in Bartow County, Georgia State Patrol spokesman Gordy Wright said in an email.

A westbound Ford Mustang was stopped to make a left turn from Highway 140 into a private drive near Oak Grove Road outside Adairsville when the fertilizer truck approached traveling too fast to avoid a collision.

The driver of the spreader truck, a blue Ford International, was Douglas Leon Mathis, 65. He was killed about 3:25 p.m. as he veered left into the eastbound lane—trying to avoid hitting the Mustang—in the path of a Mack dump truck.

Wright said the dump truck hit the spreader in the passenger side, fatally injuring Mathis.

The driver of the dump truck, Larry James Dixon, 50, of Ranger, was taken to Cartersville Medical Center for treatment of his injuries.